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Documenting the East in the
frames of the West has been the topic of discussion with respect to its
oriental perceptions for many decades. The American film director James Ivo=
ry’s
debut documentary on Indian miniature paintings, the Sword and the Flute (1=
959)
brings to limelight the contrasting worlds of secular and spiritual India. =
Within
twenty minutes it recreates Indian history under the Moguls and the subsequ=
ent
blooming of the Mogul and the Rajput paintings. It highlights the oriental
perception of an orderless East in search of superior powers to retain its
solidarity. Complimentary to Ivory’s first documentary, Venice: Themes and
Variations, the Sword and the Flute is tauter and complex as a result of the
director’s observation of the selected painting for a sensuous portrayal of=
the
medieval Indian history. This paper critically and creatively analyses the
documentary with respect to the painting of history in the ideology of lang=
uage
and the hues of gender in the charm of music for the portrayal of the Mogul=
reign
in the Medieval India. For the analysis the film, concepts of post-colonial=
ism
and visual culture theories, techniques of camera eyes and the aptness of
voice-over narration of Saed Jaffrey along with the classical background mu=
sic
are used.

Introduction: =
Documentary fi=
lms, the
non-fictional representation of reality, provide a ‘creative treatment of a=
ctuality’[1]
through real life characters in real life situations. Even before independe=
nce,
India has started producing documentaries on a variety of topics ranging fr=
om
arts and history to various socio-cultural ethe. But, it was in 1948 (April)
that the Govt. of India formed Films Division for the ‘production and
distribution of information films and newsreels’.[2] The
recently formed Congress government under Jawaharlal Nehru vindicated the
purpose of documentary films as the interest of the emerging nation, to make
the people aware of the cultural heritage and the various developments of
India. As a result, the post-independent Indian documentary films were on ‘=
local
contexts, post-colonial exigencies, colonial influences, and international
influences’ (Jain, 2013). The 1950s is peculiar in the history of documenta=
ry
genre as a reflection of the contributions of foreign film makers like the
German Paul Zils,[3]=
the French Jean Renoir, the Italian Roberto Rossellini,[4] the
Russian Roman Karman[5]
and the Swedish Arne Sucksdorff. They were fascinated to the ancient culture
and civilisation of India, its industrial development (Karmen’s Dawn over India) and its aborigine=
s like
the Murias of Madhya Pradesh (Sucksdorff’s The
Flute and the Blow). In addition to their contributions, independent
agencies like the United States Information Service, the Technical Cooperat=
ion
Mission and the Shell Film Unit have nourished the history of Indian docume=
ntary,
producing elaborate films on agricultural revolution and community developm=
ent
programmes. In this context, the American documentarian James Ivory’s the Sword and the Flute isnoteworthy as it frames the Medie=
val
India. Through selected miniature paintings of the Mogul era, it inaugurate=
s Ivory’s
entry into Indian life and culture, and establishment of the renowned Merch=
ant
Ivory Productions –‘18 feature, short and documentary films that have been
variously hailed as daring, idiosyncratic, subtle and cosmopolitan’,[6]in
1961, as a wandering company to exhort the hybridity of cultures. Though the
main theme documented in the Sword =
and
the Flute is the development of the medieval Indian painting through ag=
es, this
paper critically analyses the white man’s gaze on the once colonised country
for encountering the cultural values of the other with the help of selected
paintings of the time.

This documentary, as an art history,
analyses both imagery and meaning in the paintings of the time. For the
deconstruction and celebration of it, Ivory culled these paintings from The
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Freer Gallery in Washington DC, the Metr=
opolitan
Museum of Art and from some private collections. The story of medieval Indi=
a is
evolved through its art works, combining the stagnant characters of Indian
miniature paintings with the dynamic properties of film. By highlighting the
details, the camera eyes critique across the picture plane to sew the (hi) =
story.
The 16thcentury India is sketched in these paintings as a craving
nation parted under the reigns of various warring Kings, through the camera
eyes. The foreign film goers perceive the golden age of India, welcomes
wholeheartedly the descendant to the terrible Genghis Khan.

Compared to Ivory’s debut documentar=
y,[7]
the spectacular history he crafts through the Indian paintings are tighter =
and
it generates a total sense of complexity. It is the result of his role as a
close spectator of cultures and his intimate and vicarious response to the
paintings of sensuousness. He later made use of this technique in his 1978 =
film
on India, Hullabaloo Over Georgie a=
nd
Bonnie’s Pictures (85minutes).This paper provides a Postcolonial render=
ing
of the text, which evokes plural ways of seeing and thus, critically analys=
es
the documentary on the basis of its representation of medieval India throug=
h the
selected paintings.

The=
East
through the West: From
the post -Renaissance period onwards, Indian tradition and its culture are
familiar to the Europeans through various merchants, missionaries and
Ambassadors like Thomas Roe (of James I to the Mogul court of Jahangir).In the early 19th century, H=
egel
remarked that ‘without being known too well, [India] has existed for millen=
nia
in the imagination of the Europeans as a wonderland. Its fame, which it has
always had with regard to its treasures, both its natural ones, and, in
particular, its wisdom, has lured men there’ (Batchelor, 1994).Fascinatingly, Ivory’s the Sword and the Flute historicises the medieval India through
selected Mogul and Rajput paintings of the time.It commemorates opening of the ‘Indian =
gates
one by one to the invading armies of Emperor Akbar’ and his efforts to rest=
ore
the ‘immemorial and tranquil life of Indians’. Emergence of both the Mohamm=
edan
and the Hindu forms of art are coloured in pastoral shades. Utilisation of =
the
intelligent and vigorous Hindu painters in the Islamic imperial studios mou=
lds
the techniques of Indian miniature paintings. Another peculiarity of this
documentary is the depiction of Akbar as Lord Krishna in the mythical city =
of
Dwarika, which is portrayed deliberately to show the reign of him as with
tolerance and sympathy; sans oppression. Diplomatic affairs with the
neighbouring nations ultimately made him ‘an Indian emperor, ruling less as=
a
military invader’. India is perceived here as ‘chaotic, irrational and weak=
to
the colonizing powers in order to identify themselves with order, reason and
power’, as a ‘cipher for the Western unconscious, the repository of all tha=
t is
dark, unacknowledged, feminine, sensual, repressed and liable to eruption’ =
(Batchelor,
1994).

In this documentary, history of India
before the invasion of Akbar is neglected for the story and the proud of un=
iting
Hindustan as a nation beyond its disparities, from Arabian Sea to the Bay of
Bengal. The newly created tranquillity is depicted in the paintings filled =
with
rustic scenes of people and animals celebrating in the lush green landscape=
; ‘the
reverberations of cattle ground proclaimed (his) victory’, which resulted in
the vibrancy of Indian democracy, later. But, Smith narrates another story =
on
the aftermath of the Battle of Panipat, ‘(he) marched straight into Delhi,
which opened its gates to Akbar, who made his entry in state…, a tower was
built with the heads of the slain. Immense treasures were taken with the fa=
mily
of Hemu whose aged father was executed’[8] (1958).
This "tower of heads"
tradition and ceremony was preserved by the "magnanimous" Akbar
throughout his reign.

The conquest of Rajputana and the fi=
re of Jauhar[9]
and other related wounds of the natives became the roots for architecting a
modern secular state. The bleeding of a nation (under the Moguls) is
camouflaged under the Rajput paintings of salvation.Sixty years of the Mogul campaign resul=
ted in
the submission of the Rajput Kings under their orders, foresees the invasio=
n of
the colonial British supremacy. It anticipates the role of a foreigner to
restore the immemorial and tranquil life of India though it needs generatio=
ns
of war. As Hayden White comments history (visual or verbal), ‘mirrors’ all =
or
even the greater part of the events or scenes of which it purport to be an
account. Thus, each and every (printed) history can be considered as the re=
sult
of the processes of ‘condensation, displacement, symbolisation, and
qualification exactly like those used in the production of the filmed
representation’ (White, 1988). As a result, commodification of India is exhibited
through a fantasized narration of history of both India and its paintings, as civilizationally inferi=
or, essentially
ancient, stagnant and frozen land, which vs. the modern, rational, unified
West- undermines the contemporary culture.

Pai=
nting History
in the Ideology of Language: Amazingly, the West’s nostalgic eyes on the once
colonised India for roots and enlightenment echo the title of the documenta=
ry, the Sword and the Flute. Through a=
ges,
symbolism of the words ‘sword’ and ‘flute’ brings to light the nefarious and
reputable statuses of them respectively. While ‘sword’ stands for power and
protection, ‘sword’ symbolises purification of the self (pranava or freedom). Attribution of equanimity, courage, aggres=
sion
and leadership to the sword connotes the masculine West, which controls the
passive and supportive feminine East. As mentioned earlier, the dominant
ideological attitudes of Europe formulated the indigenous history and cultu=
re
of India in a critical way; it becomes an ‘interaction between great men and
the institutions they created, modified or restored’ (Jones, 1967). This
documentary, as a historical writing on ancient India, ‘exhibits an instruc=
tive
series of changes in interpretation’ (Thapar, 1968) for the past centuries.=
As
a representation of ‘historical events in visual images’, this documentary =
assumes
‘the mastery of a lexicon, grammar, and syntax-in other words’ (White, 1988=
). Pai=
nting ‘works
essentially through the “captured moment”, whatever narrative implications =
this
can generate by various cues in the framing, composition and local detail’(=
Corner,
2007). Ivory’s
simultaneous status as a historian is critiqued here by concentrating the
interpretations of his ‘materials in order to construct the moving pattern =
of
images in which the form of the historical process is to be mirrored’. This
excludes certain facts from his account as irrelevant to his narrative purp=
ose.
The historian's relative choice, with respect to each domain of history he
gives up, is always confined to the choice between history which teaches and
explains us in different degrees.

=
Ivory makes use of the Persian Miski=
n’s
paintings (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) to portray the medieval India under the reign=
of
Akbar and Jahangir and their affairs with Britain.Elaborate description of Jahangir as ‘t=
he
adornment of the face of learning an insight’ shadows his vices and the sub=
sequent
political climate within his empire. He is pictured as the connoisseur of
western Renaissance art and as the centre of the universe. Jahangir’s
preference of the Sufi Sheikh than the Ottoman Sultan and King James I of
England and the cupids in the portrait (Fig. 1) combine the Western and Eas=
tern
worlds of aesthetics. Visitors of the ruler are ranked here in the order of
importance. We, now come to the left bottom of the painting, where the arti=
st
Bichitr places himself as the least of importance: a self-portrait of the
artist in his own work was a bold move. Jahangir’s ardent support for the
spread of Christianity is evident in the presence of a Jesuit missionary and
the picture of Virgin Mary in Fig. 2. But, these things are not detailed by=
the
story-teller. Thus, it compresses the past into a closed world by telling
singular, linear story- how the Moguls pacify the warring-India and popular=
ize
its paintings. It
reveals the preconceptual layers of historical consciousness within the very
structure of the historiographical text, which develops ‘a consistent and
reliable representation not of reality itself but of the human mind's
perspective on reality’ (White).[10]=
a>
Decline of the medieval miniature painting in Aurangazeb’s reign and its
replacement by the so called company school to cater the patronage of the
British ruling class in India, is not mentioned in the documentary.[11]=
a>Thus,the
definition of documentary as it is not different from the fiction films, wh=
en a
director ‘always make mistakes’ while films the life of somebody or of some
chapters of history[12]=
a>
(Alpert, 2013) becomes true for the selected documentary. In addition to=
this
imagistic representation, the documentary provides a basis for a regenerati=
on
of the scenes and atmosphere of past events, thus the history of India is
recreated for the foreigner through some selected paintings.

This
documentary, as a visual medium, constructs and presents the characters of =
the
painting as real or original in front of its spectators, thus it seems ‘dif=
ficult
to attain the reality of existence just because of our dependence on langua=
ge’
(Althusser[15]).
Like Gramscian hegemony, the parallel narrations of the narrator and the
paintings attribute immortality to the heroes of the ruling class, in milit=
ary
and mystic hues. Thus,
the documentary begins with sword of the Moguls and ends by the flute of Lo=
rd
Krishna, mysteriously combines the medieval Akbar and the mythical Krishna.=
Intension
of the film is mysterious, for it relates the ruling of Akbar to Krishna. T=
hough
the film documentary strives for the effect of a straightforwardly direct a=
nd
objective account of events, it is always a ‘shaped’-fashioned or
stylized-representation thereof. That is, ‘[W]e must remember that on the
screen we see not the events themselves ... but selected images of those
events.’ In fact, the "truthfulness" of the sequence is to be fou=
nd
not at the level of concreteness but rather at another level of representat=
ion,
that of typification (Rosenstone, 1988).

The techniques of subjective camera =
and
imperceptible editing portray both heroism of men and the perceived passivi=
ty
of women; reflect the supremacy of the masculine West over the feminine Eas=
t. Indian
women become ‘(passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man takes the
argument a step further into the structure of representation, adding a furt=
her
layer demanded by the ideology of the patriarchal order as it is worked out=
in
its favourite cinematic form- illusionistic narrative film’ (Mulvey, 1999).=
=

[Figure 5 =
and
Figure 6 near here]

=

The woman’s loveliness in all her mo=
ods is
said to be the main trend of the Rajput paintings, which deviates the reali=
ties
of their representation of self.J=
ohn
Berger insisted that women are portrayed in an altered way for the ‘ideal
spectator, which is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is
designed to flatter him’ (1972). The sorrow of parting and the rapture of
meeting (‘her body expands like a flower his presence’) are the main emotio=
ns
of those women and they want to be under the shadow of their lovers always,
nothing else to perform, except to draw his picture in his absence. Thus, t=
hey
‘exist as the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another person as obj=
ect’
(Mulvey, 1999). Consolation of the parted lovers is plotted in outside natu=
re,
an inevitable background for most of the paintings. Beloved’s longing for h=
er
lover is set in an exotic nature with snakes recalls the scenes from Eden. =
This
documentary becomes an ‘instrument of the male gaze, producing representati=
ons
of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view’
(Schroeder, 1998). The narrator transmits the relation of the lovers to the
spiritual experience of self-forgetfulness and self-surrenders. Characters =
from
the Hindu pantheon (Fig. 7) colour the romantic scenes of these paintings,
through the patriarchal version of the history along with Bhakti tradition.=

[Figure 7 near here]

=
o:p>

=
Through these drawings human passion=
is
transfigured and became an allegory of divine love. Accessibility of Lord
Krishna as a personal god alters the entire context of the story deviates t=
he
narration into the thirst of the troubled souls for the union with god, jus=
t as
divinity ministers the souls of men. Nature, with its everyday life of vill=
age,
serves the painter as the setting for the sacred legend of both Krishna and=
the
Mogul emperors, by voicing that ‘no spiritual drama in art seems truthful
without radiance of it’.As =
Chan
has noted, the interpretive voice-over of the documentary provides a
“rudimentary attempt at classifying ‘native life’ according to various them=
es
resounds with a loosely ethnographic attempt to rationalize and categorize =
the
study of indigenous people.” We can make a comparison between Ivory’s The Sword and the Flute and Basil Wri=
ght’s
Song of Ceylon (1934) with resp=
ect to
the narrators of them, for they ‘do(es) not always convey ‘information’ abo=
ut
its subjects in a scientific manner (Chan,2014). Ivory creates a‘ma=
gico-religious’
India in
contrast to the materialistic foreign powers. Through narrative and camera
techniques the director assigns predetermined gendered actions to its
characters to perform their roles, in order to portray and recreate a suppo=
sed
reality of the time.

=

Conclusion: Selected medie=
val
miniature paintings from the art galleries like Reymond Levy (San Franci=
sco)
a=
nd from
some Western libraries and its patterning for a movie by deviating the angl=
es
of camera for the Western audience are suspicious. Through these paintings,=
the
narrator and the camera eyes create a fantasy world of India beyond its real
colours and celebrate the brutal heritage of the ascendants of Tamburlaine,=
who
follow the Primo=
geniture system=
.
Parallelism of Queen Elizabeth and=
Akbar
as patrons of art and their preference of hybridity of religion also adds
relevance to the topic of discussion. Like a historical novel, this histori=
cal
film draws attention to the extent to which it is a constructed or, ‘shaped=
’ as
representation of a reality (Rosenstone, 1988). Portrayal of a person diffe=
rs
when it’s done through a camera, for it decides what to be focused and what=
not.
Depends on the camera eye, most part of the paintings remain ‘either
unseen or invisible’, as ‘the camera cannot see everything at once… it makes
sure not to lose any part of what it chooses to see’ (Bazin, 1967). As
Tomaselli has mentioned, this documentary also provides a ‘tracing of reali=
ty’
(2007). Camera
turns the depicted person into an object, by concentrating it in various de=
grees;
thereby it distances the viewer and the viewed. The eye of the camera contr=
ols
the gaze of the film goers and treats them as uniformly passive. Therefore,=
Act=
ual
size of the paintings is unsure for the audience (Fig. 8 and Fig.9). And,
holistic portrayal of indigenous paintings are neglected, therefore, the
realistic picture of Mogul India is missing. (Appendix)

=
p>

[Figure 8 and Figure 9 near=
here]

When we relate this documentary with=
the
tints ofRaj nostalgia, as it beco=
mes as
a mode of social memory by emphasizing distance and disjuncture, utilizing
these diacritics of modernity as a means of ‘critically framing the present=
’(Bissell,
2005). Interestingly, this imperial nostalgia is also linked to the impact =
of
postcolonial developments in the West. As a phenomenon, it is broadly conne=
cted
to the revisionist politics and history, understood as a response to a loss=
of
global position or prestige, and treated as a form of reaction-something th=
at
arose in the context of a perceived erosion of old geopolitical hierarchies,
spatial borders, social boundaries, and lines of identity. It mobilizes the
various signs of the past in the context of contemporary struggles (2005).<=
/span>As=
span>Hayden White m=
entions,[20]the ‘artistic’ side of the history of art
would have to do with what the historian of art makes or composes when she =
sits
down to write up her notes, organize her images, muster her arguments, and =
tell
the story of (some part of) art's history(Kansteiner,1993). To historicize =
an
individual artwork or, for that matter, anything from the past is to show h=
ow
it differs from anything coming before or after it but also how it generally
resembles other things peculiar to the age in which it originated. This pro=
cess
of contextualization and individuation is also a process of distancing and
estrangement from the present. The collection of art by the great capitalist
corporations, foundations, and museums may vary based on their individual t=
hirst
for history.

For I=
vory,
India is entirely ‘a new world … exotic world… remote from us in time’ and =
his
purpose is ‘to enlighten the public’. Post-colonial visual culture along with other
media studies analysesthe complex=
ity of
texts to bring into light the ‘discontinuous temporalities and complex
aesthetic forms that challenge routine ways of relating the history of media
form to conventional historical processes’(Rajagopal, 2011). He, instead of=
the
routine saying ‘seeing is believing’ prefers ‘believing is seeing’. Thus the Sword and the Flute as a docum=
entary
on pre-colonial India, ultimately provides a useful site for such discussio=
n. Though
it is done as an explicitly heterogeneous visual practice, it develops a
homogenization of Indian culture and life. Thus, this ‘documentary is the
creative interpretation of reality’ to ‘creative interpretation of re-creat=
ed
reality’ (Sukhdev, 1956). Stirred by this documentary, the Asia Society sent
Ivory to film another documentary on India titled The Delhi Way, a search for the ‘lost spirit’ in the promised land =
of
India- reunification of religion, art and its philosophy. And, as Drui=
ck has
mentioned, Ivory equally draws our attention to ‘the construct of the film
itself as both aesthetic experience and inadequate guarantor of truth’ (Dru=
ick,
2007) for the recreation of the past.

This documentary on Indian miniature
painting, as an adaptation of nonfiction, brings out a collective memory, w=
hich
is ‘not simply what happens when people intentionally and actively commemor=
ate
or retell the past. It is also what residues the past leaves with us and in=
us,
residues that construct and confine how we understand the world and how past
and present govern our perceptions and actions’ (Schudson, 1997). Thus, the Sword and the Flute reconstruc=
ts a ‘full
sweep of historical consciousness, understanding, and expression that a cul=
ture
has to offer’ (Edgerton and Rollins, 2001), and this Orientalist documentat=
ion
of Medieval India connects ‘the present with the past to reinforce group
beliefs and a shared historical narrative’ (Carlson, 2007).

=

Acknowledgement: The writers wo=
uld like
to acknowledge the Director, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technolo=
gy
for granting permission and providing necessary facilities for the successf=
ul
conduct of the research.

Reference:=

=

1.Alpert,
Erin. 2013. “The Visual in Documentary: Sergei Loznitsa and the Importance =
of
the Image”. Studies in Documentary =
Film 7(2):
135-145.

2.Batchelor,
Stephen. 1994. The Awakening =
of the
West:The Enco=
unter of
Buddhism and Western Culture. California: Pa=
rallax
Press.

3.Bazin, A. 1967=
. What is Cinema?Vol.1, Berkeley: University of Californ=
ia
Press.

11.Jain,
Anuja. 2013. The Curious Case of th=
e Film
Division: Some Annotations on the Beginning of Indian Documentary Cinema in=
Post-independence
India, 1940s- 1960s. The Velvet Light Trap: University of Texas Press. =

12.Jones,
G Stedman. 1967. “The Pathology of English History”. The New Left Review. 46.

Appendix:
Factors
regarding the Great Akbar:(menti=
oned
in “Akbar, the Great: A Tyrannical Monarch”)

·&nb=
sp;
By
the precious heritage of duplicity and treachery handed down to him, Akbar =
cut
off the generations of martial Rajputs race.

·&nb=
sp;
After
the capture of Chittor, says Smith, Akbar ordered a general massacre which
resulted in the death of 30,000.

·&nb=
sp;
Akbar
used marriage alliances with various royal houses as a way of expanding his
empire. The actual number of women in the harem was nearer to 5,000.

Akbar's
Fanaticism

Akbar's
(mal) Administration:

§Akbar was so p=
enurious
and retentive of money that .." he considered himself to be heir of all
his subjects, and ruthlessly seized the property of every deceased whose fa=
mily
had to make a fresh start ... his whole policy was directed principally to =
the acquisition
of power and riches. (Smith)

<=
![if !supportFootnotes]>[3] ‘To
provide a rallying centre for the documentary film movement’, he sponsored a
quarterly magazine- Indian Document=
ary
in 1949.

<=
![if !supportFootnotes]>[4]His masterpieces Open City, Paisa and Europa ’51 surprised the world with its
neo-realism, and he came to India in 1956 and documented Indian scenes for =
his India’57. Because of its in-depth =
and
complexity, Truffaut praised it as a ‘meditation on life, on nature, on
animals...’

<=
![if !supportFootnotes]>[5]He is reputed for the documentation of many historical events like
Spanish Civil War, Mao’s march in China, Nazi trials at Nremburg.

[10]=
span>Men=
tioned
by Wulf
Kansteiner (1993) titled,“Hayden
White's Critique of the Writing of History” in History and Theory.

[11]=
span> By the time o=
f Queen
Victoria’s accession to the throne of the English East India Company, Mogul
empire was in its decline and India the treasure house and trading center f=
or
the colonial powers.

[12]=
span> Alpert descri=
bes it
as “when a director makes a film about someone’s life or about a historical
situation, he or she will always make mistakes and that ‘in this sense a
documentary film does not differ in any way from a fictional film or animat=
ion”
(Loznitsa 2005b).

[13]
Hayden White refers Jarvie’sCharact=
erization
of the Essence of Historiography ("debates between historians about
just what exactly did happen, why it happened, and what would be an adequate
account of its significance") in his “Historiography and Historiophoty”
(1988)